The Colonial Experience in America seems to us a part of the distant past, with little relation to our daily lives in the 21st century. Visiting our colonial ancestors, however, shows clearly that many ideas, forms, and practices which evolved in the two centuries before the American Revolution became deeply imbedded in our national psyche.

The past is still with us—we are a tree with many roots that go very deep. While We may not immediately identify with Pennsylvania German Pietists, New England Puritans, Virginia planters, indentured, slaves of Native Americans, Quakers, Anglicans, Methodists, Swedish farmers, Dutch traders or French Huguenots, all of those groups and more contributed to our heritage and legacy. Sometimes it is necessary only to scratch the surface of our present selves to see where we came from.